The second episode of Telekom Electronic Beats’ new podcast series features a discussion on the influence of AI technology on music production, a tribute to Ryuichi Sakamoto and Richie Hawtin’s miso recommendation.
Telekom Electronic Beats recently relaunched their podcast series with new weekly audio newsletter The Week. The Electronic Beats podcast has previously hosted interviews with the likes of Sevdaliza, Mura Masa and Honey Dijon. The next episode of the conversational podcast – out this Thursday (13 April) – will feature a long-form conversation with the Brazilian house DJ and producer Mochakk.
On the recent second episode of The Week podcast, host OttO Kent speaks with journalist Emilie Friedlander. The pair discuss AI technology and music production in light of a viral video in which Roberto Nickson replaced his own vocals with an AI trained model of Kanye.
“My guess is that as long as the technology is out there to create these sorts of deep fakes, people are going to keep trying but I think there’s going to be a lot of push back from the music industry and rights holders who are going to be putting pressure on regulators and the companies developing these tools to shield them from people exploiting their IP,” Friedlander says on the future of AI within music. “Just as there are already tools out there that say teachers can use to detect whether a high-school essay was written by an AI, we’re probably going to see similar tools being rolled out in the audio space which could be another way of policing bad actors.”
Friedlander also shares her thoughts on the potential benefits that AI can bring for musicians. “On the other side of the coin, I think there’s also a lot of room for artists being able to actively benefit from these voice models. For example, an artist could create their own voice model and then invite other people to pay for the privilege of using it. Or even use it as the basis for fun, fan-generated content.” Friedlander also talks about Holly Herndon‘s 2019 album PROTO which was made using AI-baby Spawn: “The interesting thing about the record was that she said that the AI voice only made up about 20% of the audio so you couldn’t always tell what was AI and what was not,” she says, continuing, “I think that was kind of the point, that sooner than we think this technology is going to become so ubiqitous that we won’t always be able to tell what is what.”
The conversation between Kent and Friedlander also goes deeper into the future of AI on music production, allaying anxieties about its potential impact and speaking on the positive potential. “I think we’re going to see a lot of songs that sound professional enough just using an app like Midjourney you can create a professional-ish looking graphic but that doesn’t mean that this work is going to be interesting,” Friedlander says, “or that these songs are going to have that certain special something that sets a good track apart from a great one. And I think that that is just going to make people care more about the human touch and the aspects of music that can’t be made by a machine. I hope it actually ends up being a catalyst for people innovating”.
Elsewhere in the episode, Kent talks about the legacy of Ryuichi Sakamoto‘s work in light of the Japanese musician’s recent death. The Week episode also covers a fan tribute concert to Rosalía – which saw the popstar’s Motomami show recreated as a drag performance by a Peruvian Youtuber – and a portable speaker designed to be attached to Crocs. Additionally, the host Kent speaks with DJ and musician Richie Hawtin who shares his top Berlin spot for miso.
This Thursday will see the next episode of the podcast released – featuring Brazilian DJ Mochakk discussing fashion, his background in hip-hop and skateboarding culture, TikTok and his love for Comic Sans.
Listen to the second episode of The Week below.
